A quick-thinking off-duty firefighter has been hailed a hero for providing life-saving assistance to a man who went into cardiac arrest at Albufeira’s Lidl supermarket on Thursday morning (June 16).
João Antunes, 43, was ready to pay at the checkout when he saw a man had collapsed and stopped breathing nearby.
“I saw that the man was in cardiac arrest and started the reanimation procedure. He started to recover and when my fellow firefighters arrived, we were able to use other means to bring him back,” he told national tabloid Correio da Manhã.
Antunes refuses to be labelled a hero and says he was simply “at the right place at the right time”.
Albufeira’s fire commander António Zua Coelho said Antunes’ quick-thinking “made a huge difference to the victim” and likely saved his life.
He added that he is proud of all those “who are firefighters 24 hours per day”, not just during their working hours.
The victim, 68, was taken to Faro Hospital and remains hospitalised.
